Ever watched pleather disintegrate in front of your eyes over 48 hours?

Some of you probably saw my post on the “Your Latest Purchase” thread about getting my “Holy Grail”:  The Phicen Robyn Hood.

Over the last 48 hours, every piece of pleather on this figure has begun flaking and falling off…and this figure has a LOT of pleather.



That pic was from when she arrived Thursday morning, Since then, pants, top, belt, armband on the upper right arm (you can just see the edge of it behind the hair), green forearm guards…all flaking. Everything that was glued has fallen off (collar, little black pouches on the shoulder straps).

The figure was mint in box, so basically, as soon as it came in contact with my air conditioned environment, the process began.

I’m disappointed, but I’m not angry, and I don’t blame the seller. I got it from a private seller on Yahoo! Japan Auctions, and the Japanese are generally meticulous with maintaining and storing their figures. At this point, I just have to laugh and chalk it up to being part of the hobby. I’ll make my own Robyn with what I have left (head, body, hands, quiver, bow, arrows).

Oh my! That sucks.... did the boots also start flaking, too? I ask because I have a pair of those for an intended kitbash/custom, and now worried they won't hold up....

For what it's worth, I'm sure you can probably come up with a custom outfit for her that is even nicer than the original, but still reminiscent of it. It's still unfortunate that this happened to a figure you went through so much hassle to acquire, though. But yes, pleather is the kryptonite of this hobby!

Thanks Skywalkersaga. I actually saw an old message from you today on a OneSixthWarriors thread when I did a Google search on “repairing pleather”. I’m kind of beyond that point now, though.

The boots are the only thing that haven’t started flaking. I watched a few videos and found a product that will preserve pleather, but whether it gets here before the boots start peeing remains to be seen.

I already have some ideas for a new outfit. Fortunately, there’s a lot of black and camouflage clothing out there to chose from.

Argh, that sucks!
If you can peel off the remaining pleather (assuming the fabric backing is still intact) I’d be tempted to paint over it with black fabric paint so you’ll at least have something vaguely similar at the end of the day!

I was able to peel off the pleather, and the fabric is intact underneath, so fabric paint is an option, but anytime I’ve gone down that road (painting and customizing in general), it hasn’t ended well. I suppose I don’t have much to lose at this point though.

I was going to write about something similar, but this thread sums it up perfectly. First, sorry for your figure, even more so being a "grail figure".
If it "helps", i discovered last week that my 1/6 tiger tank which i stored in a dry basement room with almost constant temperature, is falling apart due to the resin parts getting brittle and shrinking and the glue disolving into a flaky mess.
While getting some crates from my wife stored away, i ever so slightly touched the front of the barrel with my shin, only to see that it came totally lose from its socket.
Upon turning the tanks upper part to inspect the damage, i suddenly held several small pieces in both hands that kept merely attached by paint, not glue....
Nothing un-fixable, but lesson learned, this stuff is a "temporary" possession, nothing you keep forever.

And a second lesson soon followed in form of a coo-model, silicon seamless body. granted the figure had its defects before and wasnt a priced possession rather than a custom project, the parts were elbows and knees were only slightly bend had cracks and small holes.
interesting thing is, they must have been subtle for years for i have a habit of checking for shelf divers regularly and didnt notice anything on the figure, only to have it "pop" out of the blue.

one thing i'm worried about is the dryness of my figure room.
as i store both my figures and 3d printing equipment in it, filament likes a dark, dry environment.
and while the usual bodies seem to do just fine, even standing in sand for years didnt crack the feet material, i fear that silicon bodies wont live that "long".

so far i'm storing my m34 phicen figure in the most neutral position, but have to admit i haven't posed it for quite some time. guess the next displaying session will tell....

Seriously?!? My first attempt to swap the hands:







Pleather-free Robyn (except the boots).  It’s not horrible…



(Note the figures in the background that cost less than half of 1/6 and don’t give me mental indigestion.  )

Tjolnir wrote:Upon turning the tanks upper part to inspect the damage, i suddenly held several small pieces in both hands that kept merely attached by paint, not glue....
Nothing un-fixable, but lesson learned, this stuff is a "temporary" possession, nothing you keep forever.

Your post really helped me put all of this in perspective.  And the end of the day, these really are just temporary possessions and not anything to fret over.

I’m sorry to hear about your Tiger Tank and figure. Based on everything I’ve read, you had them stored in an ideal environment.

That’s another one of my lessons learned.  These things aren’t our fault.  We didn’t do anything wrong.  I catch myself thinking “Man, I wish I could go back to Thursday morning when Robyn Hood first arrived.  Then I think “Yes, and what would you do?  Never open the box?”.

This was unavoidable.  Your Tiger Tank was unavoidable.  We’re all collectors, and most of us have been for a long time.  We know how to take care of things, but back to your original point, these things weren’t made to last forever.  So guess we just have to enjoy them when they’re new and take care of them as best we can knowing that some of these outcomes are inevitable.

Yes, that little white spot is Robyn’s boot beginning to peel.  I just confirmed it after noticing it in this pic.  Wheeeee!!!  

I suspect could be due to the difference in temperature and humidity.

Anyway, for the hands, please use either hot water or a hair dryer to soften before removing the pegs, then gently place those pegs into the body and firm up the holders with needle-nose pliers.

For the boots, similar to the pleather, best to use paint to cover over.

Yeah, it's heart-wrenching, but that's what it is....

I have quite a couple of figures deteriorated whilst still in their original packaging, and only discovered their state when I finally cleared some space in my showcase, and decided to rotate out the displays. These were new MISB figures, kept in a humidity controlled room too. 1 or 2 were less than a year old too, from product release.

I’ve had this very thing happen in the short span ( a couple of days) it took a package to arrive from Kansas to Wisconsin. I saw pictures of the boots on the figure that I sent to a seamstress for a very specific outfit that she made. She mentioned she had boots that would work with the outfits time period, and I purchased them from her — she didn’t remove them from the figure once on. No lie, the second I opened the box in my temperature-controlled environment where all my figures reside, they flaked apart. I ended up chucking them immediately afterward and found something similar. Good luck with rebuilding the figure.

I’m reading everyone’s stories, and there really is no rhyme or reason to this is there?

I had a kitbash Robyn Hood planned in my head when I didn’t think I would get near one at a decent price, so that’s the way I’m going to go for now. It will be very simple, but I think it will look and feel like Robyn Rood.

Right now, I don’t have any inclination to restore the original costume, but I’m going to hang onto it in case there comes a time when I do.

Valentin, I’m going to follow your suggestion and see if I can at least get those wrist pegs fixed.

This pegs coming off issue was just discussed in relation to M31 in the Ryu thread. Several years ago bodies like S12 (perhaps this is one of them,or similar) and M31 were made in such a way that they frequently had a defect whereby the brace holding the clamp that receives the wrist peg inside the lower arm would come lose and travel upward along the lower arm, making the wrist peg very loosely held and easy to detach. This is surely what happened here. In theory, the problem is fixable (one has to place the peg back in the clamp and clamp it down by forcing the brace back down the arm in the direction of the peg. Others might have more skill or patience, but in my experience, the fix is temporary at best, the hold is never really or dependably secure, and there is a good chance one messes up the soft rubbery skin while trying to get the brace back into the right position. There is more information in (or linked in) the TBLeague bodies catalog sticky thread. If I were you, I would transfer the head and the outfit to another, newer body.

Glad i could have been of help. I stored my tank in the exact same spot for years and was very stressed about doing damage to it by simply being careless, even declaced the basement room an off limit area out of fear someone could stumble against it.

all this stress was strangely gone upon discovering that it was falling partially apart by itself. this way it was no ones fault in particular and put things really into perspective.

And this is my second tiger tank, the first was destroyed by some idiot doing repairs in the room it was stored at the time by literally putting a rolled carpet on top of it when the rest of the room was empty... to this day i'm amazed i didn't smash him into a pulp.

based on this complete senseless loss i'm even more hypochondric when it comes to my collection.
so yeah, as bad as it might look, it really takes some stress off my shoulders not having to curate my toys every waking hour. there's simply stuff you can't avoid and it comes with the very nature of our hobby.

right now i'm more occupied with whether to buy further silicon bodies in the future or sticking to the "normal" ones.
95% i keep my figures displayed in a certain pose.

the expensive experience will come in a few years i guess with the two fallout power armor figures i got right now. the inner parts are rubbery and will dry out eventually.... time will tell

I'm so sorry dude, this figure is one of my strong wants as well, though for me it's mostly the head with the eye effect, and I feel for you having it disintegrate like that. I've got leather leggings from the TBLeague cowgirl and a belt from the VeryCool Double Agent Zero figure that might look good as an, admittedly inexact, replacement. Maybe some Nancy in Hell boots for the side buckle look? I've got a lot of unused stuff from projects that never went anywhere lol.

Kallor8 wrote:I'm so sorry dude, this figure is one of my strong wants as well, though for me it's mostly the head with the eye effect, and I feel for you having it disintegrate like that.  I've got leather leggings from the TBLeague  cowgirl and a belt from the VeryCool Double Agent Zero figure that might look good as an, admittedly inexact, replacement.  Maybe some Nancy in Hell boots for the side buckle look?  I've got a lot of unused stuff from projects that never went anywhere lol.

I really appreciate the thought, but at this point, I’m not going to try to recreate the original look. I have something a lot simpler in mind. Maybe if I see another Robyn Hood at a decent price, and I can talk to the seller before buying it, I’ll try again. For now, I’m just going to do a quick kitbash using whatever pieces I can, and but this whole rollercoaster ride behind me.

GubernatorFan wrote:This pegs coming off issue was just discussed in relation to M31 in the Ryu thread. Several years ago bodies like S12 (perhaps this is one of them,or similar) and M31 were made in such a way that they frequently had a defect whereby the brace holding the clamp that receives the wrist peg inside the lower arm would come lose and travel upward along the lower arm, making the wrist peg very loosely held and easy to detach. This is surely what happened here. In theory, the problem is fixable (one has to place the peg back in the clamp and clamp it down by forcing the brace back down the arm in the direction of the peg. Others might have more skill or patience, but in my experience, the fix is temporary at best, the hold is never really or dependably secure, and there is a good chance one messes up the soft rubbery skin while trying to get the brace back into the right position. There is more information in (or linked in) the TBLeague bodies catalog sticky thread. If I were you, I would transfer the head and the outfit to another, newer body.

I do remember we had a brief conversation about this although I think it may have been a different thread.  You were saying that you’ve had issues with the S12D in the past.  I mentioned that I have a few S10Ds and S12Ds and haven’t had any issues with them.  Robyn is on a S12D and this must be one of the originals given the release date, so there you go.  They must have fixed the problem in later production runs.

I guess I can cross the body off the list of what I can salvage.  Another day or two and I’ll be down to one arrow!  

Xavion2004 wrote:I do remember we had a brief conversation about this although I think it may have been a different thread.  You were saying that you’ve had issues with the S12D in the past.  I mentioned that I have a few S10Ds and S12Ds and haven’t had any issues with them.  Robyn is on a S12D and this must be one of the originals given the release date, so there you go.  They must have fixed the problem in later production runs.

Oh, I'm sure it has come up in half a dozen threads, many of them before you joined. Yes, I probably had an early S12D body, and I'm told such issues are sometimes fixed down the line, so that would add up. In that case you can get a new S12D body -- or something else, if you are not recreating the exact same character/appearance.

Replacing the body might be tricky if the skintone has changed since then (which I presume it has)...

skywalkersaga wrote:Replacing the body might be tricky if the skintone has changed since then (which I presume it has)...

No problems there. She’s a standard suntan. I checked just to be sure.

Xavion2004 wrote:

skywalkersaga wrote:Replacing the body might be tricky if the skintone has changed since then (which I presume it has)...

No problems there.   She’s a standard suntan.  I checked just to be sure.

Oh, thank goodness!

I should have mentioned in my post above about the boots I received in the mail, that the time of year was Summer, so I imagine that the varying temps and humidity level I'm sure had a huge impact on it (no idea what the environment was like that the seamstress had them in), the temps from the travel through the USPS, and then my home -- which at that time I didn't have the Man-Cave that I have today).

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He Who Shall Not Be Named offered these thoughts:

"1. Can all who are experiencing pleather and body degradation truly account for how the items were received and absolutely be transparent about how/where the items were displayed (ie., environmental conditions such as heat, humidity, and exposure to light -- natural or otherwise)?

2. If some are stating items were "Brand New" MIB, then were the boxes shrink wrapped sealed or no shrink wrap?

3. The composition and quality of the material (pleather) used for outfits and bodies may have been an inferior batch. This is true for bodies and also for outfits, but then again... how can some offerings from more than 10 years still MIB/NRFB remain stable where as some more recent items still remain stable, but some of those same items are not?

4. I'm of the belief that environmental conditions known and unknown are a factor. It's not those affected are being careless, but perhaps may be overlooking obvious things they're not recognizing.

5. I do believe when some are buying from sources... those sources may not be transparent about how things were kept and stored."

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I know for myself, now that I literally have a "Cave" for my stuff, that environment does indeed have a massive impact on my stuff (I didn't prior to four years ago). Everything is kept in a finished basement where it is cool (always), humidity level isn't too high or low and doesn't fluctuate to any significant degree, and what windows there are have not only blackout film but also blackout shades (so until I turn on the few soft light overheads that I have, it is pitch black down there). Examples of figures that have shown no signs of pleather degradation or skin tearing, where I know others have: Hot Toys Selina Kyle & Michael Keaton/Batman Batman Returns, my custom Slave Leia which is on a Jiaou Doll "wheaten" has been sitting in varying degrees of bent legs for a few years with no tearing at the knees. Take all of that for what it is -- environment from what I've seen matters. If you live in a hot/humid, or hot/dry, and with too much sunlight -- all of these things will adversely affect how long these temporary things will last. Knock on wood, I have figures from 20 years ago that are still fine.

Yeah, people who can have climate-controlled storage areas are very lucky. Not every part of the world has the ability to do that.

In this case, the box was shrink wrapped.  I’m confident that it was never opened.

I have no idea how the seller stored the figure or if he/she was even the original owner.  I bought it from an individual seller in Japan on Yahoo! Japan auctions using a proxy service, so there was no direct communication.  I have learned some valuable lessons from this experience and will ask these questions in the future.

It is summer (at least in Florida) and it is VERY humid here.  The figure probably did go through quite a few temperature and humidity changes from Japan to here as it was passed from the seller to the proxy to the carrier and finally to me.  Now that I think about it, this is the only 1/6 figure I’ve gotten from Japan outside of the Leon Kennedy I got from Mandarake a few months ago.

Whatever it was, at the end of the day, it’s just bad luck and “tough noogies” for me as we used to say here in the states.  

Maybe I’ll write a country song about this hobby:

“When the skin tones don’t match,
and the clothes don’t fit,
the pleather is cracking,
and you paid too much for this (bleep)”

skywalkersaga wrote:Yeah, people who can have climate-controlled storage areas are very lucky. Not every part of the world has the ability to do that.

A portable humidifier/dehumidifier goes a long way to help.

Pleather is usually cloth-backed PVC. PVC goes brittle when exposed to UV radiation (e.g. sunlight). It also absorbs and releases moisture depending on the humidity level so deterioration can be minimized by storing in a dark room with a constant humidity.